Felix Hernandez walked out to the field after the rain halted on a cool, wet day here, took some warm-up tosses with bullpen catcher Jason Phillips, then headed to an indoor bullpen for a 33-pitch session that lasted about 10 minutes.

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Hernandez threw mostly fastballs with some changeups mixed in. The session drew quite a crowd of onlookers, between coaches, front office types, media and Hernandez’s Seattle teammates. They were all either inside the bullpen area or pressed along an outer fence watching.

“I was waiting for it for a long time,” Hernandez said of his first throwing session since inking a 7-year, $175-million deal last week. “Now that I feel good, I’m going to just keep going out there like normal and go with my routine and prepare for the games.”

There will likely be a signing bonus attached to that, meaning Hernandez will very likely be earning far more than the $20.7 million he was initially slotted to make this year in base salary and a pro-rated bonus. That will impact the budget short-term and could be a reason the Mariners did not make any significant payroll additions the past few weeks.

Payroll was at $85 million as of today, with the potential to go to about $91 million if players reach easily-attainable incentives. We’ll see how Hernandez’s new deal breaks down.

Zduriencik sent out congratulations to Hernandez’s agents, Scott Pucino and Wil Polidor, calling them “very professional” in how they handled negotiations.

“I think it’s a great thing for the Seattle Mariners, it’s a great thing for Felix Hernandez and we’re looking forward to this guy being here for a long time, obviously,” Zduriencik said.